Emotional President Obama responds as a parent to school shooting

11:53 PM,
Dec. 14, 2012

Barack Obama

Written by

Aamer Madhani and David Jackson
| USA Today

For a moment Friday, President Barack Obama dropped his usual steely public persona, and instead spoke as a heartbroken parent as he addressed the nation on the mass shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn.

"They had their entire lives ahead of them," Obama said, pausing several times to catch his voice and wipe away tears. "Birthdays, weddings, kids of their own."

In his comments, Obama mostly steered away from the debate on U.S. gun laws that has been reignited as a result of Friday's mass shooting that left at least 20 children and six adults dead. ...